The Offer

Receive a sign up bonus of $200 from Blue Hill Bank when you apply online or in branch and mention the promo code CHECKING200. You also need to complete the two following requirements, broken down as follows:

Receive $100: Two online bill pays

Receive $100: Recurring direct deposit of at least $1,000

The Fine Print

Direct deposit and bill payees must be established and paid by November 30, 2015. Incentives will be paid by December 31, 2015

One per household

Valid for new checking customers only

All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Blue Hill Bank offers a free checking account, the only requirement is that you must open it with at least $10. Their fee schedule says that there is an early account termination fee of $25 if the account is closed within 90 days.

Our Verdict

This is a great bonus, you can initially fund $10,000 with a credit card, which means if you’re using a 2% cash back card you’d earn another $200. You can also get at least $100 of the bonus with no direct deposit, meaning things aren’t a total loss if doing an ACH transfer doesn’t work. We’ve added this bonus to our list of top bank account bonuses and it can also be viewed in our sortable table of all checking promotions.

As a Massachusetts resident I decided to investigate this. There is no hard credit pull — just ChexSystems — and you can fund with a credit card up to $10,000.

I just applied and my application is currently pending review (this seems standard). The process was very user-friendly, you just need to upload your Drivers License. I already have a pending $10,000 purchase on my Arrival Plus that is currently coding as “Blue Hills Bank.” No indication of any cash advance to this point.

Will update once the process is complete, but this looks like a very lucrative promotion if it holds up, even if you don’t complete the DD requirement.

I opened account on Tuesday and funded $5K with my Barclays Miles & More Mastercard. Transaction went from temporary auth to posted yesterday for the exactly the funding amount, no mention of cash advance fees. Also minimum spend miles + spend miles (35K) is already showing up on my Barclays account. I read that cash advances do not earn miles/points, so I am guessing it’s safe to assume that the transaction counts as a purchase?

Signed up for an account the other week. Their online banking system is kind of lacking. I have looked everywhere and can not for the life of me find an option for ACH transfer. Also, every time I click on Bill Pay, I keep getting this message:

Either your webpay session has timed out:
Please log in again
OR
Log In attempt resulted in an error:
Please call Customer Support

Was hoping this was just a temporary glitch, but it keeps occurring. I guess I’ll have to call and deal with customer support.

Applied today and received email from Blue Hills saying application denied based on info from ChexSystems. Requested ChexSystems report. Guess I will have to MS new Barclay Arrival card the old-fashioned way.

Hi, I’ve never seen any banks posting credit card funding amount on their website. For this offer, do I have to fund with $10k in order to not set up DD or is it still required to receive the bonus? Thanks

Called Blue Hills e-commerce after they declined my application.. They claimed they were unable to complete the ChexSystems inquiry. They suggested I re-apply for the checking account; did so; was approved, with funding of 10k on new Barclay Arrival card.

Application declined as well. Got a latest copy of my ChexSystem report which turned out to be clear. Tried two other banking bonuses listed here and also got declined. One said they couldn’t verify my identity. 4 out of 5 id verification questions have nothing to do with me.

My experience was exactly the opposite. I tried twice and both times failed. The system couldn’t verify my identity for some reason. The problem is their system charges your funding card up front, before verifying any information. So I ended up with two large pending auths on my cards that ate all my available CL.

Usually the auths should fall off very soon as there was no transaction, but Blue Hills doesn’t have any capability to remove them. (Remember they are a bank! What a surprise.) The holds would stay on my cards for 30 days before being automatically dropped. I had to contact my card issuing bank, who told me only merchants can remove holds, either electronically or by calling in to the bank.

Blue Hills was not very cooperating or responsible for the mess they had caused. In fact, a representative I spoke to was extremely rude and hung up on me, shouting “you are not a customer, you don’t have money with us”. Took me 5 calls to reach a manager at the call centre, who still wasn’t professional or capable enough to complete the simple task.

Finally my bank took care of it as a one-time exception, after I called a backdoor number.

When I saw that they limited funding to $1,000 I bailed on the application. But evidently my attempt to fund for $10,000 triggered a pending charge like @Duan above. Their web form limits funding to $1,000 but they go ahead and authorize for $10,000? Unbelievable.

Even though I bailed on the application after seeing that funding was reduced to $1,000, I got an email from them today saying my application was denied.

They don’t reveal what the funding options are until after submitting personal information, then they put a temporary authorization on my credit card for an amount greater than what their system doesn’t allow, then even though I bail on the application they deny me an account? Some operation!

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Disclaimer: We attempt to keep the information found on DAD CC Cards as accurate as possible, if you find information that is incorrect please contact us immediately.Please verify FDIC Insurance / NCUA Insurance status, credit card information, and interest rates during the application process.